My Name is Bill
Bill Wilson: His Life and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous
By Susan Cheever
Simon & Schuster
HC, 320 pg. US$24/C$36
ISBN: 0-7432-0154-X

How Bill W. saved others by saving himself

By Steven Martinovichweb posted February 23, 2004

Bill Wilson's introduction to the power of alcohol was much like many other
people's. Throughout his life Wilson fought battles against crippling depression
and feelings of inadequacy. He experienced a revelation while at a party
in 1917: alcohol could be used to overcome self-doubt. With a few drinks,
he realized, he could transform himself from the shy wallflower into the
life of the party. It was a discovery that plunged his life into hell for
nearly two decades.

Author Susan Cheever is well equipped to explore Wilson's world. The daughter
of an alcoholic and a confessed former drinker herself, Cheever is intimately
aware of the illusions a compulsive drinker weaves to support their habit.
And yet some do stop drinking thanks in part to programs like Alcoholics
Anonymous, co-founded by Wilson in 1935. The lessons that he learned in his
battle to conquer his problem have translated into millions of people freed
from their addiction.

My Name is Bill: Bill Wilson: His Life and the Creation of Alcoholics
Anonymous chronicle's Wilson's unorthodox life and his messianic mission to help those
addicted to alcohol. Unlike previous efforts, Cheevers argues that Wilson's
early years as a youth in Vermont, birthplace of rugged individualism, was
instrumental in the formation of AA. Those traumatic years that saw his parents
divorce, his mother abandon him with her parents and the death of his first
love created the man who decades later would help others succeed even as
he continued to fail.

Wilson was an intelligent and charismatic man -- a natural salesman -- that
people naturally gravitated to and the type who once he set his mind on something,
there was little capable of diverting his attention. This talented man, however,
was also beset by feelings of inadequacy. Thanks to a negative example of
a philandering father who enjoyed his drinking, Wilson was a teetotaler until
his early 20s. That changed when he realized he could use alcohol as a crutch
to overcome his shyness in social situations. That crutch eventually turned
into a full-blown and out of control addiction to alcohol.

Like many alcoholics, Wilson loved the way that alcohol made him feel. It
came at the price, however, of placing incredible strain on his marriage
and frequent bouts of unemployment. In 1934 life changed for Wilson. The
conservative Republican who was an atheist since the age of 16 had what he
believed was a religious epiphany. Though he remained an ardent foe of organized
religion his entire life, Wilson believed that a higher power had interceded
in his life and from that day on never touched another drink again. His mission
to save other alcoholics was born.

AA grew out of that mission just a few months later when Wilson met Dr.
Robert Smith, whom he helped break his own alcohol addiction. The unlikely
pair founded the organization in 1935 on the premise that alcoholics needed
to talk to others like themselves, that alcoholism was a disease and that
the struggle to stay sober was an ongoing war, which along with other notions,
were eventually codified as the organization's famous Twelve Steps. After
early years filled with skepticism by the medical community -- which largely
believed that attempting to cure someone of alcoholism was almost always
a wasted effort -- and alcoholics themselves, AA slowly began to grow by
world of mouth and complimentary media coverage.

As Cheever points out, many alcoholics trade one addiction for another and
Wilson was little different. Although she doesn't delve terribly deeply into
this aspect of Wilson's life, there is considerable evidence that he cheated
on his incredibly loyal wife -- famous for founding Al-Anon -- on numerous
occasions. Wilson also experimented with LSD, ostensibly in the hopes of
using it as a chemical cure for alcoholism, and with spiritual activities
like Ouija boards.

Despite that, Wilson's contribution to the world can hardly be overstated.
Thanks to his work we view addiction as a disease that is capable of treatment
and untold numbers of alcoholics -- not to mention those in other programs
that are based on AA -- have been helped as a result. Wilson was a complex
man whose personality defied easy categorization and yet Cheever manages
to paint a compelling picture. Though My Name is Bill suffers occasionally
for not exploring more deeply certain aspects of Wilson's life, Cheever should
be commended for bringing together a complex story in an accessible manner.

Steven Martinovich is a freelance writer in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.

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